The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1887-03-26

We are now at the mansion. The ex-
terror is sufficiently imposing, Its front
is one hundred and forty feet wide, con.
sisting of central portion of two stories
with broad wings upon each side The
portico in the centre is twenty-five feet
deep, supported by eight Doric columns,
five feet in diameter and twenty-six feet
high The house was built from designs
of the temple Of Postum, near Naples.
On the south are gardens and conserva-
tories, and in the rear, smaller buildings
that were kitchen, slave quarters and stables;
all are of brick, succeed and painted yellow.
The story of the place is that the Ar
lington estate, amounting TO some eleven
hundred acres, was sold by Gerald Alex
ander and wife, of the old Alexander family,
by deed December %, 1778, to John
Parke Gusts, who was the son of Martha
Washington by her first husband From
this owner it passed TO his son, George
Washington Parke Gusts, the adopted son
of George Washington. He gave it for
her life to his daughter, who married Gen.
Robert f. Lee; it then came to his son.
George Washington Gusts Lee, who sold
it to the United States, March 81, 1883.
for S150000.
Before this mansion was erected there
was frepla.hause upon the same spot
George W. ?. Gusts built first the south.
then the north wing, and after that he
took down the main part of the house and
completed it as it now stands, in 1903.
After the death of his sister Mr.. Custis
was the sole survivor of the Washington
family, and Arlington House was a great
resort on account of the family relies which
it contained, Here were the valuable
paintings, the Mt. Vernon plate, the china,
the furniture, and original pictures of Geo.
Washington.
Mr.. Gusts, devoted himself to literature,
painting and agriculture. He painted
number of the battle scenes of the Revo-
luton, but all that we find now of his ar
tistic taste is faint and fading picture on
the wall, over the hall door in the rear
representing the cbase-hounds in pursuit
of deer, and dogs after rabbits. Here Mr..
Gusts died, Get, 10, 1857. Story and
tradition fill the place with the life Of the
past, but the other day an old colored man
died at the age of ninety and upwards who
had been slave in the days of Mr.. Gusts,
and knew Mrs. Lee before she married, but
these lives that span the century are gone
or going, fading more rapidly than that
dim painting over tie hall door.
To-day as we enter Arlington House we
pass thorough the wide empty hall into the
spacious parlors; we look through the
windows into the smaller conservatory, and
come back to record our names in the reg
ister. We see a pile of old registers, safe,
an old stove, few maps, framed inscrip-
tions upon the wall-the same that are in
the Cemetery-and this is all that visitors
can see. There are the carved mantels, the
massive mahogany doors; but the floors are
bare, aud the place well represents desola-
ton. The infatuated relic-hunter commit
ted so many depredations it became neees-
sary to limit the part of the house to be
seen, and the other rooms are occupied by
the superintendent-who must be wound
ed soldier-and by his family and assist
ants.
Leaving the house, just down the hill,
is the Gusts family burial-place, and on
the way to the gate, the Custis spring, once
quite a resort. The visitor returning can
lcSs66ss the long bridge, amile and D quarter
foli6 over the Potomac, but slsOIser way
caurt ,hte the Aqueduet bridge, and from
that to Washington.